New Bicycle

A bit of an early birthday present from Daddy.
Toby is very proud of his new bike.

Cool style

Toby is very particular about what he wears these days. Every morning he carefully picks his own outfit out, being very particular with every single thing, even fussing over which underpants and socks he'll wear with which shirt etc.

And the shoes! We have many arguments about shoes. I'm not sure why he will insist on wearing his red suede shoes on a rainy day. Or why he just has to wear his deck shoes when we are running really late and I absolutely cannot find them anywhere.
He refers to all of this as his cool style.

Mummy, I need to wear cool style today. I just  have too. I need to wear my red boots!

And he loves nothing more than to pose for photos in his cool style

 The upside to this is that he is now dressing all by himself. He doesn't even want help.
A few weeks ago, I thought this moment would never come.

Last Weekend...

...Toby nearly exploded with excitement.
You probably remember, I think I've mentioned before how obsessed Toby is with Star Wars and superheroes.
It was national bookshop day, and the big bookshop in the city was holding all sorts of events through out the day for children. Craft activities, treasure hunts, light saber displays, and loads of superheroes and star wars characters browsing the shelves inside the shop.
When  he first spotted the Storm Trooper, he was a little scared, but holding Daddy's hand he bravely approached him, and once he started talking to him, we could barely get him to stop.
Are you a good egg or a bad egg? Do you know Darth Vader? Do you know Darth Maul? Can you take your helmet off? Can I hold your gun?

Batman was similarly bombarded with questions.
Do you know the Joker? Do you know The Riddler? Do you know the Penguin?

We ended up in the bookshop for most of the day. He held a light saber, and was given tips and advice from some Jedi Knights. He talked to Batman, Spiderman, Captain America, a Storm Trooper, Luke Skywalker, and Captain Jack Sparrow. Took part in the treasure hunt and won a prize.

He has barely stopped talking about it since, and it's the chosen subject for his show and tell at kinder tomorrow.

Last weekend...

Toby wrote his own name on the blackboard at the barber shop for the first time...

Took some photos...
 

Walked in the city with us, wearing his cool style hat, as he refers to it. He pretty much won't go anywhere these days without that hat. He's getting quite particular about what he wears.

Being Three

Being 3 years old is really such a magical age.

There are days when he is so adorable, so sweet, kind and so funny, that I'd like him to stay this age for ever.
And there are days too when being three is not such fun. He gets frustrated, or too tired, and still has to have his tantrums every now and then. Though these times are getting more infrequent.
I love that he still loves to hug me, kiss me, and tell me how much he loves me. That he loves to play with me, laugh with me, and just be his eccentric little self.

In the local supermarket he insists on helping me when we need to stop by to pick up a few essentials. Dragging around cartons of milk nearly the same size as him or huge bags of potatoes. Other times it's the whole basket he will carry, refusing to let me help him, stopping every few seconds to put it down and catch his breath. The guys who work there laughing in delight as they watch him.

I love it when he drags my scarves out of the drawer and Luis t-shirts, draping them over his head and pretending to be Darth Vader.  Or pretending to be Prince, dancing around singing 1999, while Gaw-Gaw and I have to watch and clap, as if we were the audience. Or pretending to be me.

I love that his imagination and dreams have no limits yet. He believes that one day he will be a farmer and a spaceman and a daredevil and a graffiti artist, all at the same time.

The other night though the 2 sides of being three seemed to collide, making me first rage with anger, then howl with laughter.

We'd had a hard evening, he was tired and cranky and so was I. He was getting ready for bed and there was plenty of whining going on. Then he just absolutely refused to brush his teeth. I got pretty cross and fed up of the whole evening and started shouting. Toby got cross and started screaming. And then we came to a compromise, I can't even really remember how. He finally agreed to brush his teeth but only if he could do so naked, wearing his frog goggles.

This could only happen when you're three years old.
The evening ended with us laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

Daredevil Danger

I think I've mentioned before how much daredevil play goes on around here. He refers to himself as 'Daredevil Danger', and spends many an hour jumping off beds and chairs, stunt rolling onto the floor with theatrical style.

So of course, the moment Luis spotted this Evil Knievel helmet in a bike shop, I just knew we would not be leaving without it.

Making Empanadas

Last weekend, Luis decided he wanted to make homemade empanadas, those delicious Chilean pastries, filled with beef, egg and olives.

Luis braised the beef for hours and hours the day before. I made the pastry in the morning, with a few tips from Abu. It became a production line in the kitchen, and Toby turned out to be a great empanada maker.

Boys will be boys

It's all superheroes, Star Wars and daredevils around here.

I know that I did once believe that boys liking boy things was at least part nurture, I now believe that it is all nature.

From the moment Toby glimpsed a superhero, he was absolutely fascinated. Now he has developed magnetic eyes for superheroes, he spots them all over the place in the most unexpected places.
He heard a report some time ago now on the radio, about 2 men that had a glass of wine at the restaurant at the top of the Rialto, and then put on their backpacks and jumped off. The police were looking to question them. I think Toby has talked about this incident every single day since. And he spends a lot of time wondering about all of these things. There are hours upon hours of endless questions.

Why is Spiderman blue as well as red? How big was the spider that bit him? Could a spider bite me and I would turn into Spiderman? Does Batman have big muscles? Does he have knees? What does he say to bad eggs? Where does Superman live? Why do daredevils jump over cars? Why do they jump from buildings? Are Stormtroopers good? Why does Darth Vader wear a mask? Is he alive? Where does Luke Skywalker live? What does he do? What do light sabers do? Why? Why? Why?

I find myself having to read up on these things so I can answer his questions. But with the Star Wars ones, I haven't a clue. I always end up saying, We'll have to ask Uncle Phil all about it when we go to England. I hope he is ready with the answers.

 The pictures are of Toby in his daredevil outfits. I'm not entirely sure why he wears glasses or an argyll jumper, it's not my place to ask him such questions.

Good-bye Funch, hello knobbly-nosh

There have been a few phrases that Toby has been using lately, and on first hearing I wonder where on earth he has picked them up from.
If you're not careful I'll...... ( insert some kind of threat here)
Honestly! (used as a term of exasperation)
What the hell?
S**t!

Then there is the tutting. When I first heard it I was horrified, who on earth has he picked that up from? I'm afraid It didn't take long once I'd heard Toby do it to realise who it was with all of these terrible phrases and the awful tutting habit.
Me.

So I both cringed and laughed yesterday morning when Toby came stomping down the stairs shouting and huffing:
"Mummy! I don't want to talk about it! I am absolutely sick of this!"
"What's happened?" I cried, alarmed.
"Look out of the window - There's a great big truck parked across our driveway. I'm just absolutely sick of it!"

Yep. I didn't realise before, but that must be me talking. My little boy inadvertently showing me a mirror.

And then there are words that are all his own.
Funch has been around for a while now. They are pretty much all he will draw. Funchs, on skateboards with helmets on. But the word is having to be replaced by, due to overuse and miss-use from Daddy. Funch is simply no longer cool.

So Toby has had to find a new nonsense word.
Knobbly-nosh.
Apparently it means when something is wrong or silly.
And I think it is just perfect.

The balloon man

We had to get Toby some new shoes at the weekend. The shoe shop had a man making animals out of balloons for all the children. And not just any old shapes, I think it might just be the best balloon animal I have ever seen.
A couple of weeks ago we went to a 3rd birthday party. There was a cowboy making balloon animals  for all the children. Toby asked for a monkey and I could see whilst he was pretty impressed that it was fashioned into some kind of shape, he knew it looked nothing like a monkey, and he wasn't quite happy about it.  He took it back to the cowboy about half an hour later and with a serious little face on, he complained that it didn't really look like a monkey. (Oh the innocent honesty of children).

Well yesterday, he asked the balloon man in the pink suit inside the shoe shop for a monkey. And a monkey he made. In a palm tree. And all of us were amazed.